Venice, Italy:Â Italian police announced on Thursday that they had dismantled a suspected jihadi cell whose members had discussed blowing up the Rialto Bridge, one of the top tourist attractions in Venice.
Three Kosovar men living in Italy were arrested in overnight raids, and one teenager, also from Kosovo, was held, police said.
![The Rialto bridge along the Grand Canal, during the annual historical regatta, in Venice, Italy.](/web/20170402230053im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/1/0/p/6/t/h/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvajfy.png/1490924461023.jpg)
Police also conducted nearly a dozen raids in Venice, one in nearby Mestre on the mainland and one in Treviso.
In wiretapped conversations, the men celebrated the terrorist attack in London on March 22, in which a Briton mowed down pedestrians, killing three of them, and then fatally stabbed a police officer outside Parliament. They expressed their readiness to carry out a similar slaughter in Venice.
One of the suspects, Arjan Babaj, was described by investigators as the chief recruiter and spiritual leader of the group. In one exchange disclosed by police Thursday, he said: "If tomorrow I take the oath and I get the order, I will be forced to kill them."
His interlocutor, the teenager, responded: "With Venice, you immediately gain paradise because of all the infidels here." His name was not made public because he is a minor. He spoke of putting "a bomb" at the "Rialto Bridge."
The unnamed minor, also originally from Kosovo, was detained.Â
Whether they might have been able to carry out the plan is another matter.
![Officers during an operation that led to the arrest of three Kosovars in Venice, Italy.](/web/20170402230053im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/a/j/k/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvajfy.png/1490924461023.jpg)
Police said the Kosovars -- who were living in Italy with regular work permits -- had been under surveillance on suspicion of being in contact with terrorist groups since September 2015. At least one of the arrested men had recently travelled to Syria, police said.
"The Kosovars were constantly watched, they were never out of our sight," the Venice prosecutor, Adelchi D'Ippolito, said at a news conference Thursday. "We controlled their every move, all their relationship."
![Arjan Babaj, Fisnik Bekaj and Dake Haziraj, the three Kosovars arrested.](/web/20170402230053im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/a/j/k/j/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gvajfy.png/1490924461023.jpg)
He said the members of the group had been preparing to carry out criminal activities and exercising regularly so they could "keep fit and efficient." They also watched Islamic State videos on the internet to learn "the techniques used to kill people with a knife, and showing how they could be effective and fast in the execution," D'Ippolito said.
Other videos showed how to build explosives at home, according to investigators.
![Gondola moored at sunset on the Grand Canal, at Rialto bridge, Venice.](/web/20170402230053im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/v/y/c/j/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gvajfy.png/1490924461023.jpg)
The Kosovars all lived in a suburb near St. Mark's Basilica, investigators said.
Speaking "on behalf of the city of Venice and its citizens," Mayor Luigi Brugnaro complimented the forces of law and order for breaking up a suspected dangerous jihadi cell operating in central Venice. "I can only express the most sincere thanks for what you are doing to keep our territory safe," he said.
It was not clear whether an attack was on the horizon, but Interior Minister Marco Minniti said in a statement that the Kosovars had been "planning a trip to the jihad territories, and once they had heard the news of the attack in London on March 22, they had expressed admiration and commented on the possibility of carrying out an action in our country."
As conservative lawmakers called Thursday for tougher laws against immigration, Monsignor Francesco Moraglia, the Roman Catholic patriarch of Venice (the city's equivalent of an archbishop), said it was important not to give in to panic.
"Our city, which has always been open to dialogue and place where cultures meet, must continue to believe in encounter and dialogue," he said in a statement. "As Venetians, we don't intend to forget these values."
New York Time